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Introduction

Mapping visitors of the inner city of Utrecht

By using quantitative methods and GIS during the autumn break in October 2015
- Studentification leading to segregation,
and more particularly self-segregation.19-02-2016
By Ingmar de Beukelaar

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Mapping visitors of the inner city of Utrecht

By Ingmar de Beukelaar

his article attempts to map visitors of the

inner city of Utrecht during the autumn
break in October 2015. From 17 until 24
October visitors in the inner city have been
asked to fill out a survey. The quantitative data
obtained from these surveys have been used for
my bachelor thesis about the experience of the
inner city of Utrecht (can be requested in Dutch
if interested). This article has the aim to
demonstrate the provenance of the respondents
(place of residence) and their visit frequency to
the inner city of Utrecht. Descriptive statistics
and GIS maps will be used to give an overview
of where the visitors come from and how often
they averagely come to the inner city of Utrecht.

19-02-2016
Figure 1: The inner city of Utrecht

The inner city of Utrecht

The inner city of Utrecht can be described as a
touristic-historic city center. For this research a
specific area of the inner city of Utrecht has
been determined (figure 1 & 2). There has been
chosen to take the survey in the parts of the
inner city that are the most frequented according
to other research. This has to say that the visitors
where mostly approached in the shopping area
and/or around the touristic hotspots. Detailed
explanation and argumentation of the methods
used for the survey have been omitted in this
article. The focus in this article remains on
using maps to represent the provenance of the
visitors to the inner-city of Utrecht. The idea is
also that maps can often say more than words.
However, if interested feel free to ask for more
information about the survey.

@UrbanUtrecht

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Figure 2: Research area and survey locations

Mapping the provenance of the visitors

Out of 115 respondents, 8 visitors live in the
inner city of Utrecht (7%); 48 live in the
municipality of Utrecht (41,7%); 67 live both in
the municipality of Utrecht as in the province of
Utrecht (58,3%); 19 live in the province of
Utrecht (16,5%); 48 respondents live outside
Utrecht or the Netherlands (figure 3).
Figure 3: Place of residence of the visitors

The visitors of the inner city come from various

places out of the city (figure 4). Reasons why
they visit the inner city is often for shopping or
meeting purposes. Interestingly, the visitors
seem to come mostly from the region of
Utrecht. A cluster can be noticed on the map
(figure 5). However, there are also a lot of
visitors that come from around all over the
Netherlands. This has possibly to do with the
autumn break and the fact that Utrecht is an
ideal destination for day trippers. The central
location of the city could also be one of the
explanations.
Visit frequency of the visitors
Out of 115 respondents, 107 visitors have
already visited the inner city before (93%).
Most visitors state that they visit the inner city a
couple of times a week on an average basis
(30,4%).

This article was mainly presenting facts and

maps. Want to read or know more in detail? Ask
me some questions or request my bachelor
thesis which can be read in Dutch!

@UrbanUtrecht

@UrbanUtrecht

www.urbanutrecht.com

contact@urbanutrecht.com

Figure 4: Map of provenance of visitors (Utrecht)

@UrbanUtrecht

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contact@urbanutrecht.com

Figure 5: Map of provenance of visitors (the Netherlands)

@UrbanUtrecht

@UrbanUtrecht

www.urbanutrecht.com

contact@urbanutrecht.com